


The Amazing High School Experience of Mangaka Reborn and Tsuna

by exocara



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gekkan Shoujo AU, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-04-13 10:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 45
Words: 14,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4518951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exocara/pseuds/exocara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gekkan Shoujo AU with Reborn as Nozaki and Tsuna as Chiyo. Kind of. </p><p>Reborn, a high school student in Namimori, is a popular Shoujo manga author. Tsuna finds out. Their meeting involved a giant misunderstanding. </p><p>It was all downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Good Luck, Tsuna

**Author's Note:**

> i need a better title

If someone were to ask Tsuna who the coolest person in Namimori was, he would, without a doubt, say that it’s Reborn.

Tsuna took a deep breath to calm himself down. Today was the day that he was going to ask Reborn to be his friend. From the way Tsuna was reacting, you would think that he was going to confess his undying love to the boy. It kind of felt that way to Tsuna, who had been admiring Reborn ever since he met the boy at the entrance ceremony.

 _Right. With my dying will_.

Steeling his nerves, Tsuna entered Class 2-1, Reborn’s class, and came to a stop in front of the boy. Reborn stared down at him with a raised eyebrow and Tsuna’s flushed pink. This was daunting and the coward in Tsuna – along with his hyper intuition, although he didn’t know what it was yet – was screaming at Tsuna to  _abort mission_!!! However, Tsuna didn’t want to give up. He had already come this far! What did he have to lose?

( _Oh, Tsuna_ , his hyper intuition sighed pityingly,  _if only you knew_.)

“Reborn… I…” Tsuna gulped. “I really admire you! Will you—”

“Go out with you?” Reborn interjected, making Tsuna stop short.

_…Eh?_

( _Sawada Tsunayoshi, almost seventeen years old. I tried to befriend my idol but instead, I???_ )


	2. Try Hard, Tsuna

“No, you don’t understand!” Tsuna tried to explain. “I want to spend time with you…” Tsuna trailed off, realizing that his choice of words really wasn’t helping his situation.

“You want to spend time with me?” Reborn looked amused. A bad feeling built up within Tsuna. “Sure. Why not you come to my house now?”

“No, wait!” Tsuna tried to salvage the situation. Reborn didn’t pay him much attention as he grabbed Tsuna’s wrist and started to exit the classroom.

“Don’t you want to always be with me or something?” Reborn asked. Tsuna stared at him, speechless, for a long moment.

_How did he manage to twist that out of my words?!_

“Look.” Tsuna dug his heels into the floor, stopping Reborn in his tracks. “I think we have a misunderstanding here.”

“No we don’t,” Reborn said mildly. “You like me and, if you don’t want the rest of the school to know that you do, you’ll come to my house.”

Tsuna was speechless again.

_This guy…_

“You suck,” Tsuna muttered sullenly as he followed a smug Reborn back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just uploading these from my tumblr so they're all in one place. I wonder how many chapters I can upload at one go.


	3. Mangaka

_What… am I doing?_

Tsuna filled in the blanks in the paper, his mind absolutely blank. It was good that he was fairly good at colouring, or he would probably have messed up the drawings beyond the point of salvation.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Reborn commented. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while.”

Tsuna paused and, after making sure the brush was a good distance away from the paper, looked up at Reborn with disbelief and hope in his eyes. “Really?” Has Reborn noticed him? Did he see Tsuna as someone he would like to be friends with?

Reborn smirked at Tsuna’s reaction.

“You must really be in love with me if such a simple thing is able to make you light up like that.”

Tsuna’s eye twitched.

-o-

“Thanks for helping me with the manuscripts,” Reborn said to Tsuna after Tsuna finished inking the last page. It made Tsuna blink in surprise. Slowly, his brain made the connections.

“Reborn, you’re a manga artist?!”

“You didn’t realise even after doing my beta for two hours?” he snickered. “Too mesmerized by my charm?”

“WILL YOU STOP IT WITH THE ‘LOVE’ THING ALREADY?”


	4. Fan

Tsuna stared at the autograph Reborn had given him just before he left the house. If Reborn was as popular as he said he was, Tsuna could probably sell this online for a good price. He had to check if Reborn was actually a manga artist and not just pulling his leg, though.

“Sinclair, huh?” Tsuna muttered to himself as he stared at the autograph. “That’s… English? It’s not Japanese…” With a shrug, Tsuna typed the name into the search engine.

 _[“Sinclair’s delicate and cute art style combined with her touching, heart-wrenching yet comical storylines have made her stories quite popular within the shoujo manga fanbase. Popular works of hers include her debut story: The Spartan Princess and the Hapless Prince; Drawing Days; and, the famous Listen to My Heart._ ” _]_

… _Eh? These are…_

_Shoujo manga?!_

Tsuna could feel his mouth drop open. Hesitantly, he searched for a link to Reborn’s works, starting with The Spartan Princess and the Hapless Prince. At first he only meant to read one chapter but he soon found himself progressing to the next, and the next, and the…

When morning came, Tsuna had finished reading all of Sinclair’s work, right up to the latest chapter of Listen to My Heart. Unfortunately, he did not catch a wink of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it possible to queue chapters or something


	5. Hibarin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reborn is the worst sort of person

“Hibarin is coming to help out today,” Reborn said to Tsuna. “He’s the type of person who gets flustered when people go too close to him, so try not to crowd around him, alright?”

“Alright. Hibarin… somehow that name sounds familiar…” Tsuna wrinkled his nose in thought. Hibarin, Hibarin… “What kind of person is he?” Tsuna asked, trying to find out why his heart was beating so quickly.

“Hibarin is a delicate sort of person. Although he has difficulties with speaking his mind, he tries his best and cares very much for the things he’s fond of. Small animals tend to flock to him,” Reborn told Tsuna, eyes glinting with wicked amusement. Tsuna didn’t notice, too wrapped up in his thoughts.

“He must be a very gentle and kind person if small animals like him,” Tsuna mused to himself. Reborn choked on his laughter but managed to recover just in time to look unsuspicious when Tsuna spun around to shoot him a suspicious look.

“Yeah.” Reborn took a deep breath to calm himself down. “You could say that.” 

“I can’t wait to meet him, then!” Tsuna smiled. Reborn looked away to hide his expression of pity and amusement. 

-o-

“For crowding, I will bite you to death.” The sound of terror and pain came from further down the hall, making Tsuna immediately turn to leave. Reborn’s hand on the back of his collar prevented him from going anywhere.

“Where are you going? Didn’t you say that you couldn’t wait to meet Hibarin?” Reborn asked with a sly smirk. Tsuna blanked out.

_Hibarin… Hibari… Hibari Kyoya…_

The blood drained out of his face as Reborn’s words echoed in his mind.

_“Hibarin is a delicate sort of person.”_

“REBORN, YOU LIAR!”


	6. Hikari

“Oh my god.”

Tsuna stared at the scene of Hibari surrounded by a bunch of animals. Birds, cats, dogs,  _any and every_  sort of animal made its way towards Hibari. And Hibari was  _smiling_.

Tsuna was not aware that Hibari was capable of any emotion apart from ‘sadistic glee’ and ‘irritation’.

Tsuna squinted at Hibari, wondering if the scene before him was real, or if he was simply seeing things. He wasn’t. He also saw that Hibari’s mouth was moving and strained to hear what Hibari was murmuring.

“Midori tanabiku namimori no…”

Tsuna’s eye twitched. He  _had_  heard the rumours of Hibari’s obsession with Namimori, but he didn’t think they were true! Was he seriously singing the school song to the animals?

“Midori tanabiku namimori no…” higher pitched voices joined in. Tsuna was flabbergasted.

_What is he, a Disney princess?!_

-o-

Tsuna later found out that Hibari specialized in drawing effects such as sparkles and flowers. He could even do it right on the first try, and in great detail too!

“Hibari-san is really amazing!” Tsuna marveled as he looked over the manuscript. He then looked back up, about to say something to Hibari, when he saw a tonfa flying at his head. With a shriek, he dropped to the ground to avoid getting hit.

“H-Hibari-san?!” Tsuna watched Hibari’s face for clues as to what he might do next when he realised something strange.  

Wait, was Hibari  _blushing_?!

“Shut up, herbivore,” Hibari hissed as he swiped at Tsuna with his remaining tonfa. Holding the manuscript tight to his chest, Tsuna rolled out of the way and scrambled back up to his feet. What had he done to set Hibari off?

“W-wait, Hibarin! Can’t we talk things out?” Hibari’s face went redder at the nickname.

“I’ll bite you to death!”

Tsuna quickly set the manuscript on the table before running for his life, deciding to analyze Hibari’s blush when his life was not at stake.

-o-

Hibari had gone home for the day, allowing Tsuna to creep back into Reborn’s house to finish the inking process.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I met Hibarin?”

“…” Tsuna sighed and decided to go along with Reborn’s whims. “How did you meet Hibari-san?”

“I started out by observing him so that I could create a new character. Somewhere along the way, I realised that he could draw effects well, so I recruited him,” Reborn said. Tsuna tilted his head to the side.

“Which character was the one who’s based on him?”

“Listen to My Heart’s heroine, Kyomi Hikari.”

“…”

“…”

“You know, somehow I’m not even surprised.”


	7. New Character

“I’m thinking of adding a new character to Listen to My Heart,” Reborn told Tsuna. Tsuna raised an eyebrow.

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“I need to go people watching. Do you have anyone whom you deem is interesting enough to be in my manga?”

“Hm…” Tsuna furrowed his eyebrows in thought. “Ah yes! Squalo!” Tsuna looked excited as he pointed out of the window. “People tend to flock to him.”

“Hmm,” Reborn mused to himself. “Charisma?”

“He’s out there right now.” Tsuna pointed at the window and Reborn peered out to see a tall boy with gorgeously long locks standing in the middle of a circle made by a group of boys. The sunlight glinted on silky silver hair as the boy used his hand to gracefully draw if back from his face.

“VOOIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!”

The sound echoed throughout the school. The windowpane even rattled a little.

Squalo’s hand shot out and one of the boys surround him was slammed into the ground. As if it were a signal, the other boys surrounding Squalo lunged towards the boy, only to have their faces smeared into the dirt as well. It took a mere three minutes for the large group to meet their end.

Squalo stepped on them as he made his way out of the circle.

“…” Reborn said.

-o-

“Good morning, Squalo,” Tsuna greeted. Squalo nodded at him.

“Morning, Tsuna,” Squalo said back. His voice was loud enough to make Reborn wince. The action seemed to catch Squalo’s attention and he turned to Reborn to look over him with a critical eye. “Ah, you’re 2-1’s Reborn, aren’t you? You’ve been hanging around Tsuna lately…”

Tsuna looked distressed.

“Ah!” Squalo exclaimed. “You’re a shotacon!”

Reborn twitched.

-o-

“Not many people like Squalo,” Tsuna confided to Reborn. “I don’t know why. Squalo’s really nice and helpful!”

“VOOII!!” Squalo shouted across the classroom to the boy that just came in. “Your hair looks like a lawnmower attempted to eat your head. You cut it, didn’t you?”

“See? Squalo even noticed that his friend cut his hair! He’s pretty sensitive,” Tsuna said. Reborn stared at him in disbelief.

_Are you being serious right now?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm posting until i reach the cololal and ds sections


	8. Mermaid...?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to alternative27angel for Squalo’s description of “voice like a foghorn” with beautiful hair and gorgeous singing voice

“I really don’t see how anything about Squalo can be considered as Shoujo manga material,” Reborn said flatly. Tsuna looked disappointment.

“Really? But you haven’t even seen the best part yet!” he protested. Reborn shook his head.

“No—”

“Please!” Tsuna interjected, eyes wide and pouting a little. The sight of it made Reborn’s heart rate speed up for some reason. Without missing a beat, Reborn took out his phone and snapped a picture of Tsuna’s face, making the latter yelp. This expression could be used later in his manga.

Reborn held his phone out of reach as Tsuna tried to jump for it. It was a comical sight. Reborn opened his mouth, about to say something, when the door opened and someone stuck his head in.

“Squalo, the basketball club’s starting practice.”

“Hm? Alright.” Squalo stood up from his seat and walked out of the classroom. Reborn watched him go in interest.

“He’s in the basketball club?”

“No, he isn’t. He’s just pretty athletic, so a lot of sport clubs tend to ask him for help.” Tsuna gestured towards the door, his attempts to grab Reborn’s phone forgotten. “Let’s go check it out! You might find something interesting!”

-o-

Since Squalo was a frequent helper of sport clubs, Reborn had been under the impression that Squalo had good sportsmanship on top of his athletic ability.

He could not have been more wrong.

-o-

“Just  _what_  part of Squalo is Shoujo manga material?” Reborn asked after trapping Tsuna against the wall. Tsuna laughed nervously, hands in front of himself to prevent Reborn from moving closer. Tsuna edged to his left, away from Reborn’s left arm. This was to no avail, for Reborn’s right hand hit the wall beside his head as well, boxing Tsuna in.

“U-uh…” Tsuna stuttered, eyes darting around, trying to find a place to look that was not Reborn. “His club activities?”

Tsuna looked like a frightened bunny, Reborn noted. It was really cute. He took a picture.

As Reborn was yet again fending off Tsuna’s failing attempts to take his phone, he suddenly heard a voice. It seemed to be singing Ode to Joy, and it was coming from…

Tsuna and Reborn stood in front of the music room. Tsuna seemed excited as Reborn slid the door open to see…

 _You’ve got to be_ kidding _me._

-o-

“His nickname is the Siren of Namimori,” Tsuna said with a bright smile.

“He’s utterly unfair, that’s what he is,” Reborn grumbled.

An oblivious, rude boy with an indoor voice like a foghorn having beautiful hair and an angelic singing voice? Totally, utterly  _unfair._


	9. Omake

**Squalo Omake**

_Come to think of it, how did Tsuna come to be friends with someone like Squalo?_

-o-

~The Reborn Mind Theater…~

It was the first day of school. Tsuna was excited, hoping that he would be able to make new friends. So caught up in his thoughts, he did not take much notice of his surroundings until he bumped into someone.

“Voiii! Watch where you’re going, brat!”

And that was their first meeting.

-o-

“I’m not a girl!” Tsuna yelled at his classmates. There were unshed tears of frustration glittering in his eyes, making his classmates snicker at him.

“But you’re so—” they didn’t get to finish their sentence for they were suddenly eating the dust on the ground. Squalo was standing behind them, a foot on the head of the ring leader.

“If he says he ain’t a girl, then ain’t a girl!” Squalo said in a threatening tone. To drive his point home, he applied more pressure on the ringleader’s head until he was crying out in panic and pain.

“Alright, alright! We don’t call him a girl again!”

-o-

“Th-thank you,” Tsuna said with a blush.

“Don’t bother about it. I know how it feels, after all.”

“Eh? People call you a girl as well?” Without answering, Squalo just pointed to his hair, causing Tsuna to blush sheepishly. “Oh, right.”

“They won’t listen to words,” Squalo told Tsuna. “These scum will only listen to violence, so you’ve got to smash the information into their brains.” Squalo reinforced his words by punching his palm with the fist of his other arm.

“Um… I can’t really hurt other people…” Tsuna said, looking shyly at his feet. Squalo sighed.

“Then it looks like I’ll have to be the one to protect you, then. We need to stick together after all.”

“Squalo…!”

-o-

“…” Tsuna smiled awkwardly as he continued to work on inking the manuscript.

He had no idea how to tell Reborn that he and Squalo became friends because they sat together for two years straight.

* * *

**Hibarin Omake**

“What happens if you don’t have a model to base your characters on?” Tsuna asked Reborn one day. Reborn thought for a while before beginning to draw on the paper in front of him.

“Something like this would happen, I guess.” Curious, Tsuna glanced down at the paper and stiffened up.

_So many Hikaris!_

One had shorter, spikier hair; one had longer hair in a plait; and one had blonde hair. However, their face was undeniable similar to Kyomi Hikari’s.

“They’re Kyo, Feng, and Alouette.”

_Those names sound eerily familiar…_

-o-

Fon sneezed. Alaude sneezed. Hibari sneezed.

“Ah, it seems that we might be coming down with a cold,” Fon said mildly. “Make sure to get enough rest, cousins.”


	10. Idol

As Tsuna was rushing out of his class to meet Reborn at 2-1, he bumped into someone. His bag was knocked onto the floor and the contents spilled everywhere. Tsuna made a noise of distress as he immediately dropped to his knees to gather his things. The person he ran into knelt down as well to help.

“I’ll really sorry about this,” Tsuna said, flustered and blushing. The other person handed him a book and Tsuna looked up to thank him.

“It’s no problem, kora!” the person replied, giving a refreshing grin. Tsuna stared as sparkles and flowers appeared in the background. “It’s my fault too! Why not I take you out for coffee as an apology?”

“…”

-o-

“…and that’s how I met the guy people called the idol of the school,” Tsuna finished. Squalo rolled his eyes.

“That guy was hitting on you, wasn’t he? Taking people out for coffee definitely means a date,” Squalo said. Tsuna’s eyes widened.

“N-no! You’ve got it wrong! I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a date!” Tsuna stuttered, waving his hands in front of him rapidly, as if trying to physically bat away Squalo’s words.

“What’s this about a date?” Reborn slid into the seat next to Tsuna.

“Tsuna’s going on a date with the school idol,” Squalo said bluntly, ignoring Tsuna’s increasingly distressed garbles.

“A date?” Reborn put his hand on his chest and donned an exaggerated expression of hurt. “But you’re going out with me! Are you… cheating on me?”

“…”

“…”

Both Squalo and Tsuna stared at Reborn blankly. Reborn nodded to himself and wrote something down in his notebook. “Good story material,” he elaborated even though no one asked.

“Anyway, I think that you should observe Colonello too, because he really does seem like the shoujo material that you’re looking for,” Tsuna finally said.

“So it was actually me that was on your mind this entire time? You weren’t cheating on me after all!” Reborn had somehow found a long black wig and was wearing it. His hands were clasped together and held close to his chest, as if he was greatly touched. Tsuna’s eye twitched.

“WILL YOU STOP THAT?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was thinking that reborn is rather ooc until i remembered: 
> 
> he tried to act like a baby to get out of trouble   
> he once acted like one of the girls longchamp likes (“don’t look down on me!” chews hair)   
> he can happily don on many weird costumes and act the part   
> HE IS TRASH  
> HE IS NOT COOL AT ALL   
> SERIOUSLY DURING ARCO BATTLES HE LANDED BEHIND A ROCK WITH HIS FOOT OUT AND EVEN LAUGHED AND PRETENDED NOTHING WAS WRONG   
> TSUNA WHY ARE YOU SO DENSE


	11. The President

“Is it really okay for you to do this? I mean, usually people would have club activities now, right?” Tsuna asked Colonello, trying to dissuade the boy from bringing him out for coffee. Reborn was tailing them and Tsuna would prefer that the coffee outing would be postponed to a day that Reborn  _couldn’t_  follow them.

“It’s fine, kora!” Colonello gave a roguish grin. Somehow, Tsuna felt that it really wasn’t fine. Following his impulse, he took two steps back and one step to the side.

A blue and black blur shot past him and collided feet first with Colonello.

“Stop playing truant, you rookie!”

-o-

“Sorry to have interrupted your conversation.” The president of the drama club, Lal Mirch, stood in front of Tsuna, hand tightly gripped the back of Colonello’s collar.

“No, it’s fine. I was asking if Colonello had club, anyway. I’m the one who’s sorry for giving him an excuse to skip practice,” Tsuna apologized.

“It’s no problem. We’ll be taking our leave now.” Lal nodded at Tsuna before swiftly turning around and briskly walking back towards the school. Colonello was being dragged pathetically behind her.

“Don’t worry, Tsuna!” Colonello called out. “I’ll be sure to escape to that I can take you out for coffee, kora!”

With a wince, Tsuna watched as Colonello flew through the air and crashed through a window. 


	12. what's cooler than cool

“Reborn, who’s the person who puts crosses as the solid marks?”

“Hm?” Reborn looked up from his own manuscript. “What makes you think that it isn’t me?”

Tsuna shot him an unamused look. “I know you use coffee cups to mark out where I have to fill in,” he said flatly. “You’re not as practical as to use simple crosses.”

“You caught me. The one who’s in charge of backgrounds mark with crosses.” Reborn smiled anticipatorily at Tsuna. Tsuna simply turned to Hibari.

“Hibarin, do you know who’s in charge of backgrounds?”

“I don’t like crowding,” Hibari grunted. Tsuna took that as a no.

“The one in charge of backgrounds is constantly involved in club activities, so they aren’t around as often,” Reborn answered Tsuna.

“Oh.” With that, Tsuna went back to his work, feeling a little disappointed. Whoever the person was, they did splendid backgrounds. Tsuna kind of wanted to ask them to teach him; he was in the art club, after all, so drawing backgrounds would be a good skill to have.

“Oh, could it be that you’re worried I might be spending extra quality time with that person?” Reborn asked cheekily. “A night alone, just the two of us…”

Tsuna stared at Reborn in blank confusion. “Why would I be worried about that?”

“…”

“…”

Hibari facepalmed.


	13. Coffee and Crosses

“Hey Tsuna!” A familiar voice made Tsuna stop and turn. It was Colonello. “You’re in the art club, right?”

“Yeah I am. Why do you ask?”

“Well, could you help me paint the props? I tried asking a bunch of girls but…” Colonello trailed off and it was then that Tsuna look in the multiple bruises and cuts all over his face.

He didn’t want to know.

-o-

Lal and Tsuna worked on the props in comfortable silence.

“It must be a lot of work, having to act and be in charge of the props at the same time,” Tsuna said.

“Hm?” Lal blinked in surprise. “Oh, no. I’m not acting. The school won’t allow me to act.”

“Eh? But why?” Lal gestured to the burn mark that took up the right side of her face.

“It’s because of this. Makeup would irritate my skin and the principal doesn’t want this to be shown to the audience, so I’m stuck working backstage.” She sighed in disappointment. Just then, the both of them heard a loud clatter from behind them. With rising dread, Tsuna turned around to see that Colonello had dropped the can of white paint he had been holding… onto the finished props.

“Lal-senpai…” he looked on the verge of tears. “I understand! I will seek an audience with the principal right now, kora!” He spun around and was hit in the head by the brush that Lal threw.

“Use that time to work on the props you destroyed, you idiot rookie!”

-o-

“I apologise on the behalf of my junior,” Lal sighed. “If it’s alright with you, can you paint solid colours where the marks are?”

“Sure.” Tsuna nodded and readied his brush. “It’s not a problem.”

“Thanks. I’m counting on you then.” Lal walked off to work on the more complicated props. Tsuna looked down at the board he was to paint and saw a cross.

“…”

What were the chances? Many people used crosses to mark things. There was a pretty low chance that Lal Mirch was the secret background artist in Reborn’s manga.

“…”

But if she was…

-o-

Colonello was working on some props when he saw Tsuna shyly walk up to Lal with a slip of paper in his hands.

“Lal-senpai… um…” he fidgeted around with it, blushing. “Do you… uh…” With a deep breath, he held out the piece of paper. “Coffee?”

“Eh?” Colonello’s eyes widened. Was Tsuna asking Lal out for coffee? Was he asking Lal out on a  _date_?

“…” Lal stared at the piece of paper stoically. Colonello felt a little nervous. Lal  _hated_  it when people were doing public displays of affection, and asking someone out was  _definitely_  a public show of affection.

“You…” Lal’s hand started to move and Colonello hurriedly stood up to intervene.

“Wait, Lal-senpai!”

“Black?” Lal pointed at Tsuna. Colonello stopped short.  _What?_

Tsuna gave a smile. “Filling, yeah.”

_Black coffee was filling?_

Colonello had absolutely no idea what was going on right now.


	14. Overnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> generalzargon‘s prompt: Spilled milk. Silk underwear. Why so many suits?

“Herbivore, I’m leaving,” Hibari said. Tsuna nodded at him.

“Have a safe trip, Hibarin!”

“You’re not coming?”

“No. I need to stay overnight to finish inking all of these,” Tsuna replied with a smile. “Go ahead without me.” Hibari grunted but didn’t move for a while, as if thinking about how to phrase his message.

“Be careful,” he finally said before leaving. Tsuna was a little confused. Why did he need to be careful?

-o-

“Is there anything you’d like to drink, Tsuna?” Reborn asked when Tsuna came out of the bathroom, having just changed into his nightclothes.

“Um, do you have milk?” Tsuna asked hesitantly. Reborn nodded and Tsuna gave his thanks.

“Do you have a habit of drinking milk every day?” Reborn asked. He seemed to be taking notes.

“Yeah I do.”

“And yet you’re still so short,” Reborn said with a smirk.

“…”

-o-

“I can’t believe you provoked me into wasting food!” Tsuna complained as he helped Reborn clean the spilled milk off the floor.  “Ugh, now my clothes are wet and dirty. Even my underwear! What am I supposed to wear to bed now?”

“You can wear my clothes,” Reborn suggested. He had a totally innocent look on his face but Tsuna couldn’t help but be suspicious. Was it possible for Reborn to have planned this entire thing?

…nah, that was unlikely. And why would he even plan to have Tsuna wear his clothes anyway?

“Or you could just sleep naked,” Reborn continued. Tsuna went red.

“N-no thanks. I’ll wear your clothes.”

-o-

Tsuna stared at Reborn’s rather large walk-in closet. Nearly everything in it was black with the occasional yellow and orange. Most were suits. Why were there so many?

It took a while for Tsuna to find Reborn’s sleepwear. A new problem then arose in the form of their height difference. Tsuna was totally unable to wear any of Reborn’s pants, and the shirts all fell to somewhere around his mid-thigh area. With a sigh, Tsuna just took a shirt and left the pants alone. He was already clumsy enough without something actually there to trip him.

Awkwardly, Tsuna opened Reborn’s underwear drawer. And paused.

_This really isn’t…_

He felt the fabric. It was silk.

_Isn’t silk supposed to be expensive?!_

-o-

Tsuna stepped out of the bathroom. For some reason, he felt a bit self-conscious, especially with the intense way Reborn was looking at him. Reborn stood up and a foreboding feeling filled him.

_Snap._

The sound of a camera echoed through the silent room.

Tsuna lunged at Reborn.


	15. Introducing...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally

“Reborn-senpai!” a familiar voice caused Reborn to pause in his steps and look back. A boy with blond hair and an open smile greeted him. Reborn recognized him as the boy he used to tutor, Dino.

“Senpai!” Dino lifted his hand to wave at Reborn at the exact moment he stepped on the fabric of his pants. Reborn could see Dino’s eyes widen, know the exact moment Dino realized that he was going to fall, right before Dino face-planted onto the floor. He recovered quickly.

“I didn’t realize you went to Namimori,” Reborn said. Dino gave a refreshing smile.

“I’m in my first year, Reborn-senpai. If you’re free, do you want to play basketball with me?” Dino looked at Reborn hopefully.

“No,” Reborn turned him down without any hesitation whatsoever. Dino deflated.

“Y-yeah, I thought so… I’m still that clumsy little boy—” Reborn cut him off before Dino could beat himself down any further.

“I don’t want to sprain my finger.”

“…”

That cut Dino off, alright.

-o-

“I’ve gotten into the basketball club in Namimori. While I’m only in the second string, I still find basketball fun.” Dino paused. “Ah, but it hasn’t been going very well for us because the coach has been inviting a player outside of the club over to strengthen us. The player’s really ruthless, and he tends to throw the ball without any prior warning and with great strength. Everyone runs away from his passes or they get knocked out. I’ve already gotten a few concussions in the past two weeks.” He rubbed the back of his head as if trying to soothe a phantom pain.

“You… you  _are_  playing basketball, right? Not dodgeball.”

“Yeah.” Dino laughed dryly. “Have you heard of the player before? Superbi Squalo.”

Reborn twitched. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Then you’ll know that he exerts this sort of… pressure that continues to stay with you long after he’s left, right? Because of the pressure and stress, I’ve been even clumsier. Most of the time, I find myself on the ground before I realize it.”

Dino suddenly stopped walking. Reborn stopped as well, wondering why Dino had suddenly halted in his steps when he became aware of a familiar melody.

“That beautiful voice…” Dino whispered almost reverently. “My Angel…!”

Reborn felt panic grip him as Dino immediately ran down the stairs, moving with more grace in these few minutes than Reborn had seen in the entire time he had known Dino. Reborn quickly shot after him.

_If Dino realizes that it’s Squalo…_

Reborn was too late. Dino reached the choir room before Reborn could catch up to him and threw open the doors. He froze.

Reborn felt sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he came to a stop behind Dino and peered into the room.

The singing was coming from a recording on the computer.

Reborn breathed a sigh of relief.


	16. Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one go bc i titled one 15.5 and i don't want to mess things up

**Stop**

“Thanks.” Reborn took the thumb drive from Tsuna.

“It’s no problem! Squalo’s singing is pretty great, isn’t it? You don’t have to be shy about wanting a copy of his songs,” Tsuna said. Reborn forced out a smile and jerkily nodded his head.

“Yeah.”

-o-

“Senpai…!” Dino gingerly took the thumb drive from Reborn’s hands, as if it were a priceless artifact. He looked seconds away from worshipping it, and it made Reborn really uncomfortable.

“So, in exchange for this, you’ll help me with my work,” Reborn said. Dino agreed without hesitation, more focused on the thumb drive than Reborn.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get these recordings? Aren’t Namimori’s Siren’s songs hard to find? Just  _what_  did you do to get them?” Dino looked a little worried. Reborn didn’t make eye contact.

“I got them in exchange for my pride, let’s leave it at that.”

After a moment of silence, Reborn turned to see Dino looking at him with sad, apologetic eyes.

“Whatever you’re imagining, stop it.”

* * *

**Date I**

“Tsuna, this Saturday, you’ll be going out with me,” Reborn said. Tsuna thought for a while before nodding.

“Ah, okay.”

And that was that.

-o-

The pair stood in front of a cinema. “What show would you like to watch, Reborn?” Tsuna asked. Reborn immediately pointed at the poster of a horror movie.

“That one,” he said, an amused smile on his face. Tsuna shifted nervously.

“Um, okay. But I’m not really uh… I’m not really good with horror movies so please excuse my behavior.”

Reborn smirked. This was a good chance to collect story ideas from Tsuna’s reactions. It wasn’t like he could use Hibari as a base for movie reactions, after all, considering that movie theaters were often crowded and noisy.

-o-

“HIIIEEE!!!” Tsuna shrieked and hid his face in Reborn’s shoulder. Reborn had frozen out of discomfort and was now as animate as a stone statue.

There was a lull in screaming from the movie, causing Tsuna to hesitantly peek at the screen. A grotesque, rotting face suddenly popped up on the large movie screen and Tsuna all but jumped over the armrest, crawling into Reborn’s lap and clutching at the fabric of his shirt with shaking fingers.

Reborn wasn’t really aware of anything happening in the movie. In fact, he wasn’t paying attention to anything happening in general, apart from the weight in his lap and the warmth Tsuna was emitting.

When the movie ended, Reborn realized that he hadn’t collected any story ideas whatsoever.

-o-

In order to reestablish some normality in his life, Reborn decided that he and Tsuna should go to a café after the movie. Unfortunately, this plan did not work.

_What is that fluttering sensation in my stomach? My heart is beating so quickly…_

Reborn watched as Tsuna took a picture of his food. The sight was unexplainably adorable.

Needless to say, Reborn walked away with zero problems solved, and countless problems added

 


	17. Date

**Date II**

Tsuna walked into a women’s clothes shop without any hesitation. Reborn followed him.

“I didn’t know you were into these sort of things,” he commented as Tsuna took down various dresses and compared them. Tsuna paused and looked back up at Reborn.

“I think this fits Hikari, don’t you?”

Reborn blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Kyomi Hikari, your heroine from Listen to My Heart? You  _did_  bring me out here to help you collect story material, right?”

“…”

-o-

Reborn seems to be in a bad mood, Tsuna noted as he was dragged around. A while later, he found himself standing in a cosplay shop as Reborn looked through the clothing racks for something. Suddenly, he picked out a sailor uniform and held it out for Tsuna.

“Wear this for me,” he said.

“No way,” Tsuna replied without any hesitation whatsoever.

“It’s really hard to sketch out the collar of a sailor uniform, though…” Reborn pouted. Tsuna found it kind of unnerving.

“That’s  _your_  problem.”

“Fine!” Reborn sniffed with exaggerated haughtiness. “Then I’ll wear it myself.” He marched off to the dressing room, uniform in his hand. Tsuna waved.

“Have fun.”

-o-

Reborn came out and Tsuna stared. The uniform didn’t fit, the shoulder width too small for Reborn to properly wear it. Even if Reborn could put it on, the fabric through only reach the top part of the stomach. Tsuna had to keep himself from laughing.

Reborn punched the wall. “Why couldn’t I have been born a slender bishounen!” he lamented. “Curse these muscles of mine!”

“…well,” Tsuna started hesitantly, trying to cheer Reborn up. “You look good with this body, I honestly can’t imagine you otherwise.” Reborn lit up at that.

“Really?”

_Ah, what a fast recovery._


	18. Dating Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternative27angel‘s request for hibarin and reborn playing dating games. i’m sorry, i couldn’t find a way to add in tomoda.

Reborn had hit a snag. It was true that he based Kyomi Hikari on Hibari Kyoya, but he still didn’t know how Hibari would react to romantic situations. It was fortunate that he had a backup plan.

It was time to bring out the dating games.

-o-

“Hibarin,” Reborn said seriously as he held out two dating sims in his hands. One of them were filled with girls while the other was filled with boys. “Which will you choose.”

Without hesitation, Hibari pointed at the one with girls. “Animals,” he said when Reborn asked him why. Reborn looked down at the game and, sure enough, a picture of a hedgehog was there.

“…”

-o-

[Please enter your name!] the game prompted. Without hesitation, Hibari entered his own name.

[Please enter a nickname!] Hibari thought for a while before nodding minusculely to himself and entered [Hibarin]. Reborn raised an eyebrow before writing in his notebook.

_“While Hikari acts like she dislikes nicknames, she actually holds those names close to her heart.”_

At that moment, Hibari was inexplicably filled with the sudden urge to bite Reborn to death.

-o-

Three options were on the screen.

[“Please take care of me.”]

[“You’re cute.”]

[Withdraw]

Hibari chose the last one. Which was the worst option. Reborn didn’t pay much attention to it, not until Hibari had done so for every single romanceable option in the game.

“Hibarin, what the hell are you doing? No matter how you look at it, that option won’t earn you their favour!”

“I don’t care about their favour,” Hibari grunted. “When is the hedgehog coming?”

“There  _is_  no hedgehog!!”

Reborn then had to prevent Hibari from destroying the game controller.

-o-

“Alright,” Reborn said when the both of them had settled down. He took out the game manual and flipped open to the page where all the romanceable characters were. “Choose one and focus on capturing her.”

Hibari pointed to the one at the side. She had spiky brown hair and wide, innocent eyes. The book described her as the ‘clumsy type’. Reborn frowned at that, a bit displeased due to unknown reasons. Why had Hibari picked someone who was so similar to Tsuna?

“You get to play with her cat,” Hibari said. Reborn twitched when he saw Hibari scrolling through a walkthrough on his phone.

“Don’t read the spoilers!”

-o-

The dating game plan was unsuccessful. Reborn was disappointed.

_In the end… Kyomi Hikari will still choose animals over human beings…_


	19. Challenge

“Reborn-senpai!” Dino sobbed. “It seems that Squalo-senpai has been targeting me recently. Even after I’ve done my best to express my anger!”

“And what have you done?” Reborn asked. Dino thought for a while.

“Let’s see, I glare at him whenever I have the chance! But he’s my senpai and I can’t be disrespectful, so I greet him too! Also, I’ve been chasing after him these few days to do those actions so I can properly express my anger!” Dino said proudly. Reborn twitched.

_You just seem like you’re attached to him!_

-o-

_“Please let me borrow your books for reference!”_  Dino had said. Reborn didn’t think much of it back then, but was now kind of worried as he saw Dino pouring over his shoujo manga with intense focus.

“Alright. I understand.” Dino closed the book he was reading.

“Just  _what_  did you understand?”

-o-

“There’s a letter in your shoebox!” Tsuna exclaimed. Squalo raised an eyebrow and looked at his shoebox again. It appeared that Tsuna was right as a white letter sat under his shoes. Squalo had thought that it was part of the shoebox.

_“To Squalo-senpai”_  the letter read.  _“Recently, you’ve been on my mind a lot. Please meet me on the rooftop after school! I’ll wait for you there for as long as it takes!”_

“A love letter!” Tsuna gasped.

“A love letter,” Squalo echoed Tsuna’s words in disgust.

It was funny how two people could say the same phrase in such different ways.


	20. Comparison

“I bet you never suspected that I was the one who summoned you, right?” Dino asked Squalo. The both of them were on the rooftop and Squalo looked like he’d rather be anywhere else on the earth instead from there.

“I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time,” Dino said. Squalo narrowed his eyes and his entire body tensed up. He seemed ready to bolt at any moment. “It’s about basketball.”

“Basketball?” Squalo breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank god.”

_What’s with that reaction?!_

-o-

“About basketball?” Squalo raised an eyebrow. “What about it? Do you want me to give you a nickname or something? I think I can come up with one…”

“It’s not that!” Dino wailed. “It’s about the way you play! You keep bumping into us and injuring us! Seriously, you should just leave and never come back!” Upon saying that, Dino’s eyes widened and he clamped his hands over his mouth. Even if it was Squalo, Dino still shouldn’t be so…

“Hey…” Squalo started. Dino was afraid to look at him in the face. “How about Bucking Horse? I got it from the manner in which you play on the court. Cool huh?”

_He wasn’t listening to me at all!_

-o-

“Uh… uh…” Dino wracked his mind for something to say. “Namimori’s Siren would never be like you!” he burst out. That’s right! People hate it when they were compared to someone else!

“Namimori’s… Siren?” Squalo echoed. He seemed to be deep in thought. Dino seemed somewhat taken aback that Squalo was asking such a question.  _Everyone_  should know who the Siren of Namimori was!

“You don’t know him? He has the most beautiful voice in the world!” Dino said impassionedly. “I’ve… never really met him,” he said bashfully. “But I’ve been listening to him sing every day and I believe… no, I  _know_  that only the most wonderful sort of person, with the most beautiful soul, would be able to sing with such purity!”

“…” Squalo said.

“I can’t live without him…” Dino told Squalo, his original reason for ranting overtaken by his utter devotion to the Siren of Namimori. “The Siren of Namimori is my Angel!”

Reborn smiled slightly as he looked up at the sky.

_Someone… please kill me now…_


	21. Squalo Interlude

“So after a long spiel about things I can’t be bothered to listen to, he just gave me these gloves and ran away,” Squalo told Tsuna.

“Wow! They’re so pretty!” Tsuna marveled. He felt the fabric and his mouth dropped open. “This is leather!  _High-quality leather!_ ”

“Oh, really?” Squalo looked a bit more interested in the gloves now. “It’s a bit of a waste, I only need the glove for the right hand ‘cause my left’s a prosthetic.” Tsuna frowned.

“Can’t you wear a glove over your left hand as well?” Squalo shrugged.

“Technically, I could. But leather’s hard to move around in, even with my right hand. I’ve literally got no reason to wear the glove.”

“Aww, I see.” Tsuna was a bit disappointed. Squalo looked a little contemplative.

“How much do you think I can sell this for?” he asked seriously. Tsuna gaped at him.

“You can’t just sell away things people give you!”

-o-

“Oi, Mammon!” Squalo shouted across the room at the person in a hoodie. Mammon clucked their tongue in annoyance as they turned to face Squalo. They were just about to leave to tend to the snake exhibits and Squalo was taking up their precious time.

Time was money.

Squalo tossed something at Mammon, which they caught with ease. When they realised what it was, they raised an eyebrow.

“Sell it or something, I don’t really care,” Squalo said dismissively. “I don’t have any use for it.”

With a smile, Mammon put the gloves in their employee locker and walked off.

“Voiiii! I expect fifty percent of the cut!” Squalo yelled. Mammon’s smile was wiped off their face as they looked disdainfully over their shoulder at Squalo.

“Seventy-thirty, in my favour,” they said in a clipped tone. Squalo grinned in a particularly bloodthirsty manner.

“Only if you take my shift this Friday.” Mammon thought for a while.

“Deal,” they finally said. Squalo and Mammon shook hands.

“Out of curiosity, why do you want Friday off?” Mammon asked. “You usually never miss a chance to work with the sharks.”

“I got free movie passes this Friday to a show I’ve been wanting to watch. I’m not gonna waste it,” Squalo replied.

“Pass _es_? Who are you going to bring along?”

Squalo’s only answer was another grin, more intimidating than the last.

Somewhere, Dino felt a chill run down his spine.


	22. Misunderstanding

Tsuna knocked on the door more out of courtesy than anything. Reborn never really opened the door for him, so he usually used the spare key until Reborn gave him a set. Tsuna wanted to ask if Reborn always gave people a set of spare keys but something in him told him that he didn’t want to know.

He opened the door and paused when he saw Reborn and an older woman in the hallway. The woman had shoulder-length hair and deep blue eyes. Said shoulder-length hair was sprawled out underneath her head as she lay on the ground, Reborn on all fours over her and pieces of paper scattered everywhere in the hall.

Tsuna closed the door.

-o-

“You didn’t have to chase me down like that,” Tsuna said. He was sitting in Reborn’s apartment having been dragged back by the collar by Reborn. “I can always visit you another time if you’re busy.”

“Like I said!” Reborn sighed exasperatedly. “It’s a misunderstanding!”

“If you say so,” Tsuna replied in a mild tone. He more or less could guess what happened. He didn’t really know why Reborn was so worked up but he was going to seize the opportunity while he could.  

“She’s one of my editors,” Reborn explained. “Aria Giglio-Nero. One of the manuscript papers fell and both of us reached for it at the same time, causing us to bump into each other and fall.”

“A likely story.” Tsuna surreptitiously watched Reborn’s face for any signs of frustration and was not disappointed.


	23. Rocks

“Aria Giglio-Nero and Bermuda Von Veckenschtein have been assigned to me after I requested for a switch in editors,” Reborn’s voice grew dark towards the end, making Tsuna wonder just who had been Reborn’s editor before Aria and Bermuda.

“I  _hated_  my previous editor,” Reborn said. “He would make incredibly strange demands that I would have to fulfill. Have you seen the February chapter of Listen to My Heart?”

“Yeah,” Tsuna replied. “There was bean throwing, wasn’t there? It was interesting how Sora threw beans at Hikari.” He never really got that chapter. Was Sora implying that Hikari was a demon? That was scarily possible, considering that Hikari was based on Hibari.

“It was my editor’s idea.” Reborn looked like he was suffering. “I wanted to go with Valentines’ Day, but he said it was overdone and got me to do the Bean-Throwing Festival.”

“…” Tsuna smiled pityingly as he pat Reborn on the back. “You’ve worked hard, Reborn.”

-o-

Tsuna remembered something. He searched up one of Reborn’s older works and stopped on a page with clearly showed his confusion.

“Reborn, what’s with the… stones?” Tsuna asked as he pointed out the various stones floating around the main character. They had faces.

“Oh that.” Reborn’s said flatly. “That’s my previous editor’s personal interest. He really liked rocks.”

The more Tsuna heard about this editor, the more ridiculous the picture in his mind became.

-o-

At the start of Reborn’s shoujo manga career, he dabbled in a variety of genres. Daily life, historical, fantasy, sports… No matter what genre it was, there was always something that existed.

The floating, sentient, rocks.

It was on a whole other scale of horrifying.


	24. Leeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is my absolute favourite chapter

“…” Tsuna stared down at the bottle of ink in his hands. He looked back up at the sight of Reborn suffering in bed.

_Well then._

-o-

There was a knock on the door and Tsuna answered it after placing a wet towel on Reborn’s head. An unfamiliar blond teenager was standing in the doorway, holding a bottle of ink. Behind him was Lal,  _also_  holding a bottle of ink. Without saying anything, Tsuna led the both of them to Reborn’s room.

“…”

They stared at Reborn.

“If I’m not back on time, please change his towel. When he wakes up, get him to drink water. I won’t be gone long; I’m just going to the store,” Tsuna told them before he left.

-o-

Tsuna came back with his hands full of shopping bags only to see Lal restraining a struggling Reborn while Dino attempted to pull down Reborn’s pants. A stalk of leek lay innocently beside Dino. Tsuna narrowed his eyes.

-o-

Lal and Dino sat in seiza in front of Tsuna, their head bowed.

“Explain,” Tsuna said.

“Well…” Dino began after a period of silence. “I heard from my friends that you can help someone with a cold by shoving a leek up their—”

“OKAY!” Tsuna interrupted. “No, that’s not it. What you’re supposed to do is wrap the leek around his neck.”

“Oh.”

-o-

“I’m going to cook some soup for Reborn. Is it okay for you to monitor his temperature?” Tsuna asked. Lal and Dino nodded so confidently that, against his misgivings, Tsuna turned to the kitchen and focused on cooking.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone choking and the rapid shifting of bedsheet. He spun around to see Lal wrapping the leek around Reborn’s neck. Tightly. Reborn was turning blue due to lack of air.

“WILL YOU STOP IT WITH THE LEEKS?!”


	25. Prince

“Good evening, Lal-senpai,” Tsuna greeted. “Did Reborn call you over again?”

“Nah,” Lal waved her hand. “I came over to request a script from him. Reborn writes the drama club’s scripts, you see?” she explained. “Speaking of which…”

“I’m sorry.” Reborn looked frustrated. Lal sighed.

“You met Colonello, didn’t you?”

“…yes.”

-o-

“I don’t understand.” Tsuna frowned. “Why can’t Reborn meet Colonello? Colonello  _does_  behave like a normal prince.” Lal suddenly shoved the script into his face.

“Read it.”

“Hmm, let’s see…  _The princess is beautiful, like a flower that blooms in spring, the first sight of warmth and colour in an otherwise completely barren world… the witch is like the falling leaves in autumn, a beauty that is both fleeting and melancholic…_ ” Tsuna narrowed his eyes and brought his face closer to the script.

_I don’t understand what the prince is trying to say._

“Don’t you see the problem?”

“Well, not really,” Tsuna admitted. “I mean, the script’s prince is closer to the stereotypical fairy-tale prince than the one I know.”

“You know a prince?!”

-o-

“…and then Bel threw another few knives at Fran and Fran had to be rushed to the hospital  _again_. The hospital then started reserving a room for Fran, which was good because after he was released, Bel…”

Both Reborn and Lal stared at Tsuna in mute horror.


	26. Unrequited

Colonello stared at the script in frustration. Usually he had no problem acting out characters but this time he couldn’t help but feel that something was lacking in his performance. Perhaps it was because he had never felt the pain of an unrequited love before?

Colonello looked up just in time to see Tsuna walk past.

“Tsuna!” he called out. Hopefully, he could get some help on the matter.

-o-

“…and I just feel like I’m not portraying the character in the complicated, multi-faceted way he was written, I’m not doing the character justice!” Colonello finished.

“You…” Tsuna stared at Colonello. “You know, the script writer probably didn’t put that much thought into writing the script.”

“…you’re kind of cold.”

Tsuna shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

-o-

“Reborn!” Tsuna hopped out of his seat to drag the boy over when he saw him. “Colonello has problems with the script!”

…

“You have problems imagining the emotions behind a one-sided love?” Reborn asked. Colonello nodded. “Well… let’s imagine that Lal gets a romantic partner. What would you do then?”

“I will hang out with them,” Colonello replied almost immediately. Tsuna twitched, imagining Lal’s partner getting snatched away by Colonello. Judging by the look on Reborn’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

“Alright, what if Lal and Reborn were dating?” Tsuna decided to help out. His words made Reborn go stiff, imagining the scenario. The blood drained out of Reborn’s face and he quickly shook his head to dispel his thoughts.

“How can you suggest that so easily?” Reborn was being dramatic. Tsuna didn’t bother to look at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be in love with me?”

Colonello’s eye twitched as he took in the scene.

_Rather than Tsuna being in love with you, aren’t you the one in love with Tsuna?_

“…alright.” Tsuna sighed. “What if Lal and I were dating?”

Reborn looked like he had been stabbed.

-o-

“So Reborn,” Colonello asked once Tsuna was out of earshot. “How does it feel like to have an unrequited love?”

Reborn looked at him weirdly. “Why are you asking me? It’s not like I have any experience in the matter.”

_You’re not even aware of your own feelings?!_


	27. The Person Closest to You

“Oi, Colonello!” Lal called out when she saw a familiar blond head.

She was surprised when Colonello suddenly vanished.

-o-

“H-hey, Colonello…” Lal trailed off when, upon seeing her, Colonello just turned tail and ran away.

-o-

“Colo—”

He breezed past her without a word, leaving her standing in the middle of a crowded hallway, all alone.

“…”

-o-

Colonello was laying on the ground, as if he was in immense pain. Reborn had told him to avoid interacting with Lal for a few days in order to feel the pain of having someone you love in front of you, but yet you are unable to tell them anything. So close, yet so far.

It was working.

“Lal-senpai…” Colonello sobbed. It was like he was having Lal-withdrawals. Reborn stared down at his pitiful form. Now should be about the time Reborn dealt the final blow.

“Colonello, now Lal and I are going to eat lunch together!” Unconsciously, he glanced at Tsuna when he said that. There was no reaction.

For some reason, Reborn felt that the final blow had been dealt to him instead.

-o-

It was time for club. A hand landed on Colonello’s shoulder. With trepidation, he turned around to see Lal standing behind him, face unreadable.

“Stop. Running. Away,” Lal hissed out through gritted teeth. “If you’ve got a problem with me, just say it. I thought you were above running away from your problems.”

“…” Colonello was at his limit. He gently held Lal’s hands between his own, as if it were the most valuable thing in the world. “I’ve been longing for the chance to talk to you again but, alas, I have been cruelly forbidden from you.” Colonello brought Lal’s hand closer to his face, inadvertently dragging Lal close to him as well. “If only… If only we could stay like this forever…”

Due to sheer reflexes, Lal accidentally punched Colonello in the face.

-o-

“I’m sorry Reborn, Tsuna,” Colonello apologized sheepishly. “You did so much to help me but my self-restraint wasn’t strong enough.”

“Hey Colonello,” Lal said. “Let’s walk home together.”

“Really?” Colonello’s entire  _self_  lit up. He made a beeline towards Lal and Tsuna was reminded of a puppy excitedly bounding towards its owner.

“Lal-senpai’s been walking home with Colonello more and more recently,” Tsuna commented.

“Yeah, I think Colonello avoiding her must have affected her as well. He _is_  the person closest to her, after all,” Reborn agreed.

“I can kind of imagine how she felt,” Tsuna mused. “I mean, I’d be really sad if you were to suddenly start avoiding me, after all. Well then, I’ve got to go home now. See you, Reborn!”

“Yeah, see you.”

A few minutes later, Tsuna’s words suddenly registered in Reborn’s mind. He whirled around to ask Tsuna exactly  _what_  he meant, but Tsuna had already left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was my note on tumblr: 
> 
> edit: changed “a man landed on colonello’s shoulder” to “a hand”. Thanks rs-ssa. Also, it made for an interesting picture.


	28. About Valentines' Day...

“I’m curious, have you ever given or received valentine’s chocolates before?” Tsuna asked Squalo. Squalo hummed as he looked through his memories.

“Well, when I was back in Italy, I used to play with this younger kid in Kindergarten…”  

-o-

_I called him Cavallo for some reason. Maybe he had a horse or something._

“Voii! Stop messing around, Cavallo!” Squalo yelled at the blond child. The silver haired boy stuck out his hand to help the other boy off the ground.

“I can’t help that I’m clumsy, Squalo,” Cavallo sniffed. Squalo made a noise of annoyance as he took out the handkerchief his mother asked him to carry around, and roughly wiped the tears off Cavallo’s face.

“You can’t be called clumsy, you’re a lot worse than that,” Squalo said. It made Cavallo cry harder.

_Anyway, Cavallo’s really clumsy and keeps tripping over his two feet. He likes music, so I learnt to sing for him. I never got to sing for him, though, because…_

Squalo lifted Cavallo up and into the truck. “Voiii! You’re heavy!” Squalo grumbled. Cavallo didn’t respond, preoccupied with playing in the back of the truck. A while later, Squalo spoke once again. “Voi, Cavallo, it’s time to get out. The teacher’s going to be looking for us now.”  

“Okay!” Cavallo took a step towards the exit of the truck but tripped on thin air. His hand hit the door and the door swung shut with an ominous ‘bang’. Just then, the truck began to drive off…

-o-

“No wait. That’s not it,” Squalo shook his head. “Now, what do I remember about valentine’s chocolates…”

“WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO CAVALLO?!”


	29. Valentines' Day Bonus

“Happy valentine’s day!” Tsuna said as he handed out chocolates to his friends. They were all wrapped nicely in commercial gift wrapping. “Ah Reborn!” he called out and handed the last bag of chocolates to him. “Happy valentine’s day!”

“Oh? Are you confessing your love to me?” Reborn asked with a sly smile, making Tsuna blush.

“N-no! That’s not it! They’re friendship chocolates,  _friendship chocolates!_ ” he yelled. Reborn just laughed.

“Why do the chocolates look so misshapen, though?” Reborn asked.

“I made them myself,” Tsuna said.

“Oh, did you fill them with your love?”

“Stop that.”

-o-

“Reborn-senpai, what are those?” Dino gestured towards the bag of chocolates on Reborn’s desk.

“Hm? Oh, those are the chocolates Tsuna gave me. Didn’t he give you some as well?”

“He did, but…” Dino dug around his bag to procure the chocolates Tsuna had given him. Reborn recognized them as the chocolates that were sold at the local grocery store. “These were the ones he was giving out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“…”

“…”

“Wait, am I the only one he gave handmade chocolates to?”  _What did that mean?!_

-o-

_One day before valentine’s…_

“Ah shit.” Tsuna sighed as he cleaned up the bag of chocolates he had accidentally squashed. Those had been Reborn’s chocolates.

What should he do now? He couldn’t give Reborn squashed chocolates, and all the stores were already closed so he couldn’t go out to buy more chocolates.

A book on a shelf caught his eye and he walked over to it. It was the chocolate recipe book his mum had been using just earlier. As he flipped through the book, an idea took form in his head…


	30. Animals

“Vooiii! What’s this?” Squalo asked Tsuna, holding a game disk in his hand. Tsuna sighed and took the disc away from Squalo.

“Please don’t look in my bag without permission,” Tsuna reminded, more out of formality than anything. He had been telling Squalo that ever since the day they met, but Squalo never followed his request. Tsuna then looked down on the disc. “This is the otome game a friend of mine gave me. He’s a part-time voice actor and he acted as a main character in this game, so he was given a few free copies.”

“Let’s play it,” Squalo said. “It should be interesting. Also, it’s not like I have anything to do before club starts.”

“Alright.” Tsuna took out his laptop and booted up the game. After the game developers’ logos were shown, the sound of cats meowing, dogs barking, birds chirping, etc. sounded from the speakers. The door to the classroom immediately slid open and Hibari strode in.

“Animals,” he said.

-o-

“Um, so…” Tsuna began. They were at the title screen of the game, showing many men with animal characteristics crowded around a girl. “This story is about a girl who works as a night guard in a zoo. She loves animals and usually interact with the animals when she’s patrolling the zoo. As we interact with the animals, their affection points will get higher and higher. When it reaches a certain point, the animals will turn human… I think. My neighbor wasn’t very detailed in his explanation.”

“A zoo, huh?” Squalo grinned. “I hope they have sharks.”

“Animals.”

Tsuna sighed deeply. This was going to be a trying experience. 


	31. Voice

[Input the heroine’s name!]

Before Tsuna could even do anything, Squalo took over the keyboard and typed in [Sawada Tsunahime]. When Tsuna shot him a look of annoyance, Squalo merely laughed.

-o-

The introduction was rather long, with many chunks of text and absolutely no choices. From the corner of his eye, Tsuna saw that Hibari was getting fidgety. On his other side, Squalo had already zoned out. Biting back a groan of annoyance, Tsuna skipped the prologue. He would have to go back home to replay the game if he wanted to know the story.

Both Squalo and Hibari perked up when it was time to choose which animal Tsunahime had to visit.

“Sharks!” Squalo said.

“Petting zoo,” Hibari shot back.

“Sharks!”

“Petting zoo.”

“Sharks!”

“ _Petting zoo._ ”

As they were arguing, Tsuna went with lions.

-o-

Hibari stopped caring about the characters once they turned human, so Tsuna was forced to constantly pick the other choices, running through them one by one and moving on once they became human. At last, they had turned almost all the animals in the zoo human. All but one…

Tsuna had been unconsciously putting that option off, something in him panicking wildly whenever he even considered that option, but there was no way to escape now. With extreme reluctance on Tsuna’s part, Sawada Tsunahime started to interact with the owl.

Like with the others, it didn’t take long for the owl’s affect gauge to rise and it soon turned human. This particular character had been voiced by Tsuna’s friend, so he was kind of looking forward to hearing how his friend portrayed the character.

_“It really is wonderful… the stars have granted my wishes…”_

“Wow!” his friend really was talented. Tsuna could hear the emotions of longing and joy properly portrayed with that sentence. He never thought his friend could sound so nice.

 _“I can finally meet you, touch you,_ speak _to you…”_

He saw movement at the corner of his eyes and turned to look at Hibari curiously. The curious soon turned into shock and horror as he saw Hibari readying his tonfas.

“I don’t like his voice,” Hibari said. “I’ll bite him to death.”

“Hibarin, no!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who the neighbour is


	32. Rejetion

Never in his life did Tsuna believe that this thing could happen, but it did. He never thought that he would be in this situation, but here he was.

“Please go out with me!” the girl in front of him yelled.

“No thank you,” Tsuna replied. The girl wasn’t able to take no for an answer, though.

“Please, just give me a chance! We can do a trial version of a relationship; to start, I can help you carry your bag,” she insisted. Tsuna quickly put his bag behind him so that the girl couldn’t reach it.

“No way, that’s  _my_  bag! I won’t feel secure if I don’t have it with me!” Tsuna shot back at her.

“Then what should I do?”

“You shouldn’t do anything! I don’t want to go out with you!”

“But you’re unattached right now, right? You don’t have a girlfriend, right?” the girl pressed.

“Yeah but—”

“Then there should be no reason for you to refuse me!”

Faced with the girl’s sheer persistence, Tsuna panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

“I have a boyfriend!”

-o-

“…and that’s what happened,” Tsuna sighed as he retold the events that had happened last afternoon. “She didn’t believe me, not that I blame her, so I have to get someone to pretend to be my boyfriend today.”

“You dug yourself into a nice hole,” Lal commented. Tsuna groaned.

“I  _know_!” he whined. “But I said it in the heat of the moment and now I have to find someone to be my fake boyfriend! Who in the world could fit that role?!”

“Well,” Reborn drawled. “You have someone around you that is both attractive enough to ward off competition, and confident enough to deflect the girl’s suspicions.” It was obvious that Reborn was referring to himself and Lal had to keep herself from facepalming.

“Oh right!” Tsuna brightened up. He then got out of his chair and ran towards Squalo who was on the other side of the class. “Squalo, could you help me with something?” This time, Lal gave into her urge to bury her face in her hands.

“…”

“…”

Lal pat Reborn on the back.


	33. Competition Ready

“Pretend boyfriend?” Squalo looked disdainful at the very idea. “What are you, a junior high student?”

“I’m sorry, Squalo,” Tsuna apologized sheepishly.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped,” Squalo sighed.

“Yeah!” Someone popped up behind Squalo, making Tsuna shriek and Squalo whirl around to punch them. The person avoided the attack easily, placing two hands on Squalo’s shoulders and pushing him back down into his seat.

“Hello Lussuria-senpai,” Tsuna greeted. Lussuria was the President of the Choir Club and was also in charge of their costumes.

“VOOIII! YOU SHIT!” Squalo was not as polite as he thrashed around, restrained in his seat. Lussuria ignored the boy easily, concentrating on Tsuna.

“Don’t you worry, darling,” Lussuria assured. “I’ll get Squalo pretty and presentable, competition-ready, just for you!”

“Um…” Tsuna stared at Squalo’s enraged expression. “It’ll be fine if Squalo just comes along like that, really.”

“Nonsense!” Lussuria waved off Tsuna’s words. “You need the best for your performance. Now come along, Squalo.”

Tsuna could only watch as Lussuria dragged Squalo away.

-o-

No matter how many times Tsuna had seen it, he could never get used to it.

“Ta-dah!” Lussuria said as he presented Squalo. Squalo looked like a different person with his hair tied up. A bit milder, and a lot more gentle and sweet. His normally messy and careless-looking clothes were fixed up, his shirt was tucked in, his school blazer was on, and he was wearing a  _tie_.

Squalo looked like he wanted nothing more than to rip said tie off.

“Now remember Squalo, no talking!” Lussuria warned. Squalo nodded with reluctant obedience.

Tsuna really wanted to know how Lussuria got Squalo to listen to him. After thinking about it for a while, Tsuna realised that he was probably didn’t want to know.


	34. Affection

“…that went better than expected, didn’t it?” Tsuna asked. Squalo grunted and Tsuna correctly took the hint to drop the subject. They rode the train in awkward silence.

‘What happened between them and the girl,’ you ask? Well, you’re better off not knowing.

The trained stopped. “Here’s my stop!” Tsuna said quickly. “See you tomorrow, Squalo!”

“See you,” Squalo replied in a clipped tone. Tsuna quickly hopped off the train without a second glance back. While his relationship with Squalo would be back to normal tomorrow, Squalo was currently in a bad mood so Tsuna knew he should leave his friend alone.

-o-

People really were shallow creatures. Change up your appearance a bit and stop talking, and they’ll start to treat you differently. Even Tsuna was the same, acting all flustered even though Squalo was still essentially the same person.

Someone bumped into Squalo and Squalo had to use every little drop of self-restraint in him to prevent himself from turning around and shouting at the person. It wouldn’t do for other people to see the ‘ugly’ part of the Ariel of Namimori, after all.

_(It went without saying that the ‘ugly’ part was Squalo’s actual personality. He didn’t want to read into what that meant.)_

“Eh, Squalo-senpai?” a familiar voice called out. Squalo’s eyes widened and he whirled around to see Dino standing behind him. Out of all the people in the world to see him in this getup, not to mention  _recognize_  him in this outfit…

“It really is Squalo-senpai!” Dino exclaimed. “There’s something different about you…” He frowned in thought. “Ah, I know! You’re wearing a tie!”

“…”

 _Is that_ really _the only thing you noticed?_

-o-

“…basketball went into the hoops seven times out of ten! Of course, I need to practice more to…”

Squalo kept quiet as he nodded. He probably could humor Dino for a while before he got off at his stop. But really, even Dino seemed to be mesmerized by this particular costume…

“…for a good price at the store…” Dino trailed off as he looked at Squalo, a little annoyed. “Senpai, I don’t really mind if you’re in a bad mood or anything, but could you at least talk to me like you usually do?”

“…”

Lightning-quick, Squalo had Dino in a headlock and noogied his head.

(It was done out of affection.)


	35. Pet

Tsuna sighed as he hung up the phone. To be honest, he shouldn’t really be surprised by this; he  _did_  know that Reborn was the type to do weird things, after all.

_“Our mission today is to find each other without using our phones.”_

That was going to be hard if everyone was moving. What if they just missed each other? Tsuna should probably just stay in one place and keep an eye out for Reborn and Hibari. No, he was not being lazy, nor was he too tired to deal with all of this. He was just being tactical.

Tsuna walked directly towards a nearby café. If he was going to be staying in one place for an extended period of time, he should find a place to sit, right?

-o-

It was relatively easy for Reborn to find Hibari. In hindsight, Reborn should have chosen someone who was less… violent.

Following the trail of unconscious body and general destruction, Reborn found himself in front of a pet shop. He peeked in to see the shop owner cowering in a corner of the shop while Hibari was surrounded with animals that had been released from their cages. Something green darting across one of the cages caught Reborn’s eye and he turned to see what it was.

A pair of large, round yellow eyes with slit pupils stared back at him. A tongue flicked out of a mouth and the chameleon leapt onto Reborn’s shoulder.

Reborn fell in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you thought this was R27 but i have lied. it's actually Leon and Reborn. You have all been tricked.


	36. Impression

An entire hour had passed and Tsuna still had not been found. They couldn’t even reach him through his phone. Hibari twitched every time someone came close to entering his personal space but he managed to contain himself. It did help that the people in the shopping center remembered Hibari’s face and hence tried their best to keep away from him.

“Where is the little animal?” Hibari asked impatiently. Reborn turned to him to tell him, for the umpteenth time that he didn’t know, and that he would like to find out as well, when his phone rang. Reborn hurriedly took it out, hoping that it was Tsuna, but his hopes fell when he saw that it was an unknown number. He answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Um, is this Reborn?” a  _very familiar_  voice asked. “I’m Tsuna. Sorry, I didn’t notice when my phone ran out of battery.”

“Tsuna? Thank god,” Reborn breathed a sigh of relief. “Where are you now?”

“I’m in a café. Vongola café, have you heard of it?”

“Yeah.” Reborn often went there for his coffee runs. “Stay where you are. Hibarin and I will be there in a few minutes.”

-o-

“Over here!” Tsuna jumped up and waved his hands madly once he caught sight of Reborn and Hibari. The person next to him smirked at him.

“That won’t do, Tsunayoshi,” they said. “You’re too short.”

“Then what should I do?” Tsuna shot back before he was promptly lifted into the air.

“HIIIIEEEEE!”

That was Reborn and Hibari’s first meeting with Tsuna’s neighbor. Understandably, it was not a good first impression.


	37. Apathy

“Reborn, Hibarin, this is my neighbor, Rokudo Mukuro,” Tsuna said. All four of them were sitting at one of the café’s outdoor tables. “He also used to be my senpai when I was in elementary school. He’s currently a part-time voice actor on top of being a third year. Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah.”

“Hn.”

Tsuna raised an eyebrow. For some reason, Reborn and Hibari seemed to be rather hostile towards Mukuro. Tsuna wondered why.

“Ah, anyway,” Tsuna tried to break the awkward silence once again. Mukuro wasn’t helping him, merely sitting in his seat and smiling that gentle smile that really gave people the urge to punch him. Tsuna wouldn’t be surprised if Mukuro had practiced in front of the mirror until he perfected that very expression.

“You must be Tsunayoshi’s friends. Classmates?” Mukuro cut in. Hibari twitched and Tsuna was suddenly reminded of Hibari’s incredibly negative reaction to Mukuro’s voice.

“Hibarin—”

“I’ll  _bite you to death!_ ” Hibari snarled as he pulled out his tonfas and lunged at Mukuro.

“Kufufu, I’d like to see you try,” Mukuro chuckled as he easily dodged Hibari’s attack. Hibari wasn’t deterred and swung at Mukuro again. The clash of metal against metal reverberated clearly throughout the café. Mukuro had somehow materialized a trident out of nowhere and was going head to head with Hibari, a gleeful smirk on his face.

“…” Tsuna said as he sipped at the cup of coffee he had saved when Hibari almost destroyed the table in his lunge.

“…aren’t you going to stop them?” Reborn asked. Tsuna shook his head.

“Let them fight,” he said apathetically.

“But your neighbor will get hurt,” Reborn pointed out.

“Good.”

“…”

_Just what is your relationship with your neighbor…?_


	38. Realization

**Realization**

“I need your help.” Reborn was standing in front of both Hibari and Lal. They were in his house.

“Why did you call us, though?” Lal asked skeptically.

“Because there is no other choice,” Reborn replied. “The both of you are the only ones that know…”

“Know?” Lal and Hibari exchanged a glance with one another. Was Reborn talking about his crush on Tsuna? Had he finally crossed the river of denial?

“Yes, know.” Reborn nodded. “You know how to take care of pets.”

“…”

“…”

Hibari turned around to leave.

-o-

“I have a centipede, not a bloody chameleon,” Lal grumbled. “How the hell would I know how to take care of a green lizard?” She turned to see if Hibari had anything to add, but the boy’s expression was closed off. She wouldn’t be getting anything from him, that’s for sure.

With a sigh, Lal unfolded the piece of paper Reborn had passed to them. It was a shopping list for insects – food for the chameleon, she’d bet. If it were up to Lal, she would just buy Reborn’s insects from the store she often frequented, but Reborn was adamant to get the “ _very best_ ” for his pet. The place to buy the insects would be…

Lal narrowed her eyes at the writing on the paper.

 _Hibarin would know_.

Lal turned to ask Hibari for the location of the store but he was nowhere to be found. On the verge of violent exasperation, she looked around to see where he went.

He was standing under a tree, looking up at one of the branches. There was a kitten up there, obviously too afraid to jump down. It was mewling pathetically as it stared down at Hibari. Hibari slowly lifted up his arms at the kitten.

Nothing happened.

Still, Hibari didn’t put down him arms, waiting patiently for the kitten to jump down.

One part of Lal wanted to go up to him and drag him off to the store to buy Reborn’s insects so she could  _finally_  go back home but she was rooted to the spot. For some reason, the other part of her seemed mesmerized by the scene. Something about it seemed familiar, somehow.

_(Bad with words, hence preferring to keep silent.)_

_(Difficulty with interacting with other people, getting flustered.)_

Even though the kitten didn’t seem to be going to jump down anytime soon, Hibari still stood there.

_(Earnest when it comes to important things, not backing down.)_

Finally, the kitten jumped down, straight into Hibari’s arms. It didn’t seem to be afraid anymore, cuddling up to Hibari.

_(A gentle heart that even animals can sense.)_

The realization struck Lal like a lightning bolt.

_He’s Kyomi Hikari!!_


	39. Spoilers

Tsuna had spent the night at Reborn’s place. For personal reasons.

Those reasons still had something to do with manga, though.

-o-

_The seven strongest humans in the world were cursed by a mysterious masked figure to live out the rest of their lives in the form of babies. Each of them have a different coloured stone they have to carry with them, a mark of their curse. As they try to break the curse put on them, they uncover a secret conspiracy…_

The stone were a bit off-putting for Tsuna, but he could deal with it. The story was wonderful and interesting, with good character development for the seven strongest as they work past their differences towards a common goal, and develop bonds with each other. It truly was a good read, and Tsuna was excited to see what was going to happen next.

It was definitely worth staying up at Reborn’s house all night to read it, considering that Reborn had the entire series with him. The next chapter was coming out tomorrow and the two of them planned to buy the magazine it was in together before school.

“Luce is a good mangaka, although she has a tendency to keep putting in stones. It was probably an influence from her editor.” Reborn shuddered after saying that, no doubt imagining what it would be like if he had been influenced as well.  

Secretly, Tsuna really wanted to see the outcome of that.

-o-

Luce’s manga was currently at the biggest climax yet. The seven strongest were finally going to find out who was the one who cursed them!

_“Looking at the facts, there’s no doubt about it,” Green said, adjusting his glasses as he glared down at the papers in his hands. Orange, their leader, looked distressed._

_“There… It can’t be! Who could…?”_

_“I’m afraid that it’s the truth.” Yellow adjusted his hat as he looked dramatically out of a window. “The masked figure… is someone we know.”_

Tsuna and Reborn both held their breath.

_[To be continued! Will the cursed seven find out about Kawahiko? Next time on Arcobaleno!]_

Reborn threw the magazine on the ground.


	40. Luce

As they walked back to Reborn’s apartment after school, a familiar woman approached them. Tsuna had almost mistaken her to be Aria but he observed that she was a little taller, and that her hair was  _much_ shorter. Perhaps a relative?

“Reborn,” she called out. “Thank you for lending me this. I almost didn’t make the deadline!”

Tsuna watched as she passed Reborn a bottle of ink and he narrowed his eyes.

“No problem,” Reborn replied. The woman then turned her attention to Tsuna.

“Hello, I’m Luce Giglio-Nero, Reborn’s neighbor,” she introduced herself.

_I knew it!_

“Hello, I’m Tsuna, Reborn’s schoolmate,” Tsuna said. “I’m a fan of your work! Especially Arcobaleno. I really liked the…” His brain failed him at that very moment and he furiously wracked his mind for something to say. “Stones.”

Luce looked at him with an amused expression on her face, and he felt horrified. He tried to say something else.

“No, not just that! It’s the stones! I-I mean, rainbow stones! The…” Tsuna made a strangled noise of distress. “…Kawahiko…”

“Kawahiko?” Luce’s smile suddenly took on a terrifying edge. “Ah yes, I suppose you’ve read the… unfortunate slip my editor made in this week’s release.” She giggled and both Reborn and Tsuna unconsciously took a few steps back.

“…”

“…”

The dangerous atmosphere cleared up and Luce’s smile turned gentle once again. “Would you like to come up to my house for coffee?”

“…”

“…okay.”


	41. Editors, Past and Present

“Your editor for Arcobaleno is Kawahira, right?” Reborn asked. Luce paused for a moment.

“Yes, it is,” she said and set her cup down. “Speaking of which, I really do need to think about how to deal with Kawahiko in the next release.” She took out a notepad and immediately began to scribble on it. The pen she used seemed to shake dangerously in her fingers. Tsuna looked away.

_Kawahira… Kawahiko… It must be a coincidence that the two names sound so similar, right?_

Luce set down the notepad in order to take a sip of coffee, allowing Tsuna to glance at it. He saw bullet points with the name Kawahira scribbled out next to it and replaced with the name Kawahiko.

_…right?_

-o-

“If I am not wrong, your editor is currently Aria, isn’t it?” Luce asked. Reborn nodded.

“Aria and Bermuda, yes,” he replied. Luce smiled.

“Aria is my younger cousin. She is currently just an intern, so I thank you for giving her a chance.”

“It’s no problem. Anything to get away from Kawahira.”

“Yes… it was unfortunate that Aria didn’t want to be my editor because she didn’t want me to be accused of favoring family,” Luce sighed wistfully. “Just think, I could have had another editor…”

Tsuna watched the both of them converse about this “Kawahira” person, wondering just how bad an impression of a person he could get before actually meeting said person.


	42. Horse and Shark

In Listen to My Heart, the main couple would be Kyomi Hikari and Hamaguri Sora. As frustrating as it may be to observe their snail-pace romantic development, the audience can still be engaged by their amusing and cute interactions. It did help that there was a side couple for the audience to turn to: Sameko and Ryouma.

Sameko was depicted as a rude girl with no sense of tact whatsoever. Ryouma was a kind-hearted pushover who kept getting antagonized by Sameko. Their interactions may seem antagonistic, but what the both of them did not know was that they were penpals,  _Same_  and  _Uma_.

Many of Reborn’s readers were in favour of Ryouma discovering that Sameko was the  _Same_  he was talking to every day, but Reborn was dead set against it.

He would never let Dino know that Squalo was the Siren of Namimori. _Never_.

-o-

“Reborn-senpai!” Dino knocked on Reborn’s door, panicking slightly. In his hands, he held a ticket to a movie. “Reborn-senpai!”

The door opened. “What is it, Dino?” Reborn asked only to have the ticket unceremoniously shoved into his face.

“Squalo-senpai invited me out to see a movie, what should I do?” he asked, growing increasingly panicked and high-pitched with each word.

“You should accept of course!” Reborn said with a smile. Dino froze up at it, staring at Reborn.

_That smile definitely means that he’s up to something!_

“Tell me the details of your date, alright?”

 _Oh, he’s just using me for research_.

Dino relaxed. And then he tensed again.

“It’s not a date!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uma means horse (im laughing). same means shark. 
> 
> sameko is basically me making “shark” into a name. the way you’d write ryouma is “dragon” and “horse”.


	43. Movie

_“Speaking of movies, do you ever wonder which armrest you should use in the theaters? Like the right one or left one?” Dino asked. Squalo shrugged._

_“To be honest, that thought never really crossed my mind.”_

Dino was stone-still in his cinema seat, unsure of what he should do. His arm was on the armrest but so was Squalo’s.

…

Squalo’s right arm was resting on top of Dino’s left one, and they were incredibly close to holding hands. It would only take a slight shift on either one’s part for their hands to fall together and…

And that was why Dino was not moving at all, terrified of what might happen if he did. Yeah, Squalo was kind of cute but—

But  _nothing_. What the hell was Dino thinking! This was  _Squalo_  for goodness’ sake! The terror on the basketball court, the one guy who had been making his life incredibly stressful from the day they met! Constantly targeting him on the court, making him carry his stuff, always taking him out after practice to eat, always giving him and only him gifts…

(There was something wrong with that picture, but Dino didn’t really know _what_.)

Squalo shifted slightly and their hands met. Dino tensed up but  _nothing happened._  Dino snuck a peak at Squalo to see him totally enthralled by the movie. The look of focused interest and amazement on Squalo’s face really was kind of endea—

And Dino was going to stop that line of thought right there, thank you very much.

He really did want to know how anyone could be so invested in a documentary about sharks, though.


	44. Complicated Relationship

“So, how was the movie?” Reborn asked Dino. Dino looked a little pensive.

“I feel like… I’ve seen a new side to Squalo-senpai today. I don’t really know how to feel about that.”

Reborn stared at Dino, a notebook already in his hand and a pen at the ready to take down notes.

“Carry on.”

-o-

“Sameko and Ryouma’s aquarium date was really romantic,” Tsuna commented. “And Ryouma’s impression of Sameko has changed, even if it’s just by a little! Could this be the start of their romantic relationship?”

“I don’t think so,” Reborn shot down Tsuna’s words, looking disgusted by the very idea. “Not if I can help it.”

The door slammed open and Dino came barreling in, out of breath.

“Squalo-senpai is the  _worst_! Why can’t he just leave me alone?”

Reborn gave Tsuna a  _look_. “See?”

-o-

Tsuna sat down next to Squalo. “What did you do to Dino yesterday? He looked really distressed.”

“Hm? Bucking Horse? I didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary; I just passed to him a bit more during practice. He’s pretty weak with receiving my passes, so I thought I should help him with it.” Squalo sighed. “Who knew that he’d be annoyed with that? He just yelled about me being ‘the worst’ and ran away.”

Tsuna frowned, deep in thought. “What if you stopped passing to him for a while and stuff? Maybe he just needs a little space.”

-o-

Dino walked into Reborn’s apartment dejectedly.

“I… don’t know why, but Squalo-senpai seems to be ignoring me today. Was it because of what I said yesterday?” he looked on the verge of tears and it made Tsuna feel bad. He quickly sent Squalo a text.

-o-

The next day Dino walked into Reborn’s apartment with a big smile on his face. There was also a big bandage on his face.

“Squalo-senpai threw the ball at my face again!” he said cheerfully. Tsuna and Reborn exchanged similar, suffering looks.


	45. Assumption

Colonello had a friend in class. Well, he was less of a friend and more of someone who had to put up with Colonello, but he was usually there for Colonello all the same. Coincidentally, he was also one of the few people who didn’t swoon at Colonello’s looks and words.

“Skull.” Colonello slipped into the seat next to the boy, making him turn to him both questioningly and warily. “Lately, I feel that Lal-senpai doesn’t like me that much anymore, kora.”

“…” Skull said as he tried to collect his thoughts. Was Colonello finally noticing it?

“She doesn’t throw things at me much anymore, and she wouldn’t be as angry when the girls disturb practice…”

 _Isn’t this her finally being_ nice _to you?!_

“Having girl troubles, Colonello?” one of their classmates passed by at this very moment. “Never would have guessed it was possible!”

Skull despaired. He wondered if Colonello would miss him if he managed to sneak away. Nothing was worth being the target of Lal’s ire, and Skull was pretty sure whatever that was going to happen next would most definitely trigger it.

“I see, it’s an appeal thing!” the classmate said after hearing Colonello’s worries. “You have to be more aggressive! More proactive! Approach her more and talk to her and…”

Skull was silent for a whole new reason now: Horror.

-o-

Lal carelessly dropped her bag to the floor and sat at the table. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was in a bad mood. Both Tsuna and Reborn wisely stayed out of her way.

After around an hour of doing backgrounds, Lal set down her pencil with a sigh. Tsuna turned to her attentively, ready to listen to her woes. It might make her feel better.

“Colonello has been really  _freaking_  annoying lately.”


End file.
